Poems on Snow
by vifetoile89
Summary: It's hard to look grief in the eye. Mei writes poetry instead. Genfic.


When she wrote poetry, Mei preferred to write longhand, with a brush pen if she could. There was just something about the authentic feel of paper under your hand, seeing ink dry and settle on the paper, words that you couldn't just erase with a keystroke - it made her focus better, and _that_ was saying something. Mei was, intrinsically, a woman of focus.

Mei had little left of "home" when she became a member of Overwatch. A woman out of time, she spent hours in the laboratory and only came back to her dormitory to sleep - at first. As she adjusted, she purchased little knickknacks and postcards that she could hang around her dorm and make it feel a little more homey, a little more _her_. And Lena inspired her particularly - Lena, who found a home in books, whose dormitory was stacked with teetering shelves of paper. Mei started to buy volumes of poetry over the Internet. And, six months after she was awoken from her cyrosleep, Mei started to write poetry of her own.

Her little notebook became a friend to her. When she traveled the world, she could always slip it into a pocket, and pull it out when a good bit of phrasing occurred to her. Then she would put it away, back to focusing on her research. She wrote in her native language, in her native script, just because that felt the most natural to her. Her favorite form of poetry was minimalist, where every word mattered. It was as spare and unforgiving as winter itself.

Mei wrote a lot of poetry about winter.

She couldn't bring herself to directly eulogize her fallen comrades. To revisit those terrible days of the blizzard, to look back at their mummified forms in their cyro-chambers, to look their ghosts straight in the eye - her pen faltered, the paper remained blank, the notebook fell to the floor while she stared out the window.

Instead, when she focused on her poetry, Mei tried to find inspiration in nature. She brought flowers into the lab and wrote about them after hours. She wrote in the shade of a tree, and compared the tree to a grandfather. But very little rang true - she'd write and write and cringe as she did. She was her own worst critic.

But sometimes, on the nights when she could strike a balance between focus and flow…

" _The streetlamps light up the snow_

 _Falling, and falling, and falling_

 _I look for other footsteps_

 _But find only my own_."

It was not bad.

Mei walked around empty parts of the Overwatch complex, rereading and reciting her poetry to her little drone, Snowball, and she made notes about what sounded right to her. One fateful day, she nearly stumbled over Lena, who was sitting in a sunbeam, with a book in her hands.

"I'm sorry!" Mei said. "Sorry! I didn't mean to interrupt your reading, I'll be on my way…"

"I haven't been reading for quite some time," said Lena, her eyes wide. "Mei, what were you reciting?"

"Just some poetry." Mei felt herself turning red.

"Who wrote it? It's fine stuff." Lena knew a little Mandarin, Mei remembered, and she must have been speaking more English than she'd realized.

"It's my own," Mei said. "It's nothing special…"

" _Au contraire_! Mei, it's good!"

Mei felt like she must be the color of a beet by now. "It's nothing, really."

Lena pressed her lips together. Then she said, "I think it's good, anyway." She smiled. "I've been thinking for a while about putting together a little cabaret night - well, 'cabaret' is the wrong word. Maybe 'talent show.' Would you think of reciting something there? I'd love it if you did."

Mei shook her head, and Lena said, "Okay, but if you change your mind, let me know. I really did like it, Mei."

And Mei left. But she thought about it.

Three days later, she told Lena that she'd like to recite one - just _one!_ \- poem for the talent show. Lena actually picked Mei up in a hollering hug - no mean feat, given their respective sizes. Mei even asked to go first, just so she could get her stage fright over with and out of the way.

Bad idea.

Lena had placed the talent show in a little Gibraltar café that she said was "absolutely charming, with the dearest little stage you ever saw." Mei was mostly concerned with the fact that it actually had a stage, complete with a simple lighting setup. When you were onstage the light was blinding, but not so blinding that you couldn't see the heads of the people in the audience before you. Watching. Waiting. _Judging_.

Only the fact that she was heading to Canada in the morning – and therefore, wouldn't have to face any of these people later on – gave Mei the guts to take a deep breath, step up to the microphone, and say:

"This is a little poem that I wrote. It's about all of us – I mean, Overwatch," she said, stumbling over her words. She cursed the English language and all of its Germanic forebears. She saw smiles in the audience and interpreted them as smirks.

She closed her eyes, and focused on the poetry. She'd written it and she was going to share it. Simple as that. And then she would go to Lake Athabasca, far far away from here.

Focus. Don't panic. Just focus on the words.

She began to speak in Mandarin, swaying slightly with the rhythm of the words. Then, her words done, she cleared her throat and recited the English version.

" _I thought that I saw a plum tree,_

 _Its roots running deep in the soil._

 _The winter came, driving like a hammer_

 _The snow, the ice, the wind_

 _The grasshopper lost all hope,_

 _The plum tree broke apart_

 _In the snow, the ice, the wind._

 _But when the morning dawned,_

 _The roots were still there,_

 _Running deep into the soil._

 _Strong hands had taken the last plum,_

 _And planted it deep, watered it well_

 _And the new plum tree grows._

 _I have seen it growing,_

 _In the sun, the rain, the wind._ "

There was a moment of silence – pure, horrible silence, to Mei's ears. And then she heard someone's fingers snapping. She opened her eyes and saw that it was Reinhardt, and Lucio was following his lead, and soon the entire café was full of the sound of gentle snaps, like hard snow against a windowpane.

Mei covered her mouth as she smiled, and Lena called out, "Brava! Brava!"

The next day, Mei set out for Lake Athabasca, her little notebook of poems safe in her pocket. Next time Lena held a poetry night, Mei was determined to have new, better poems – and to recite at least two of them.


End file.
